Open-domain neural conversational agents: The step towards artificial general intelligence

Development of conversational agents started half century ago and since then it has transformed into a technology that is accessible in various aspects in everyday life. This paper presents a survey current state-of-the-art in the open domain neural conversational agent research and future research directions towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) creation. In order to create a conversational agent which is able to pass the Turing Test, numerous research efforts are focused on open-domain dialogue system. This paper will present latest research in domain of Neural Network reasoning and logical association, sentiment analysis and real-time learning approaches applied to open domain neural conversational agents. As an effort to provide future research directions, current cuttingedge approaches applied to open domain neural conversational agents, current cutting-edge approaches in rationale generation and the state-of-the-art research directions in alternative training methods will be discussed in this paper

The Impact of Augmented Reality on Vocabulary Acquisition in Iran

This paper explores gender differences among the students that used augmented reality (AR) in Iranian secondary schools. Vocabulary learning is considered as basic in foreign language acquisition, and it has a great importance in Iranian language education. Participants of the study were both female and male students due to the fact Iranian schools are considered gender-based. The Iranian education system is not based on co-education, and for this reason male and female students attend different schools. The current study is based on experimental design, and data was collected using pre-test and post-test. The findings show that there are no differences in learning English vocabulary due to gender among the Iranian students who use the AR-based approach

A review of the international early recommendations for departments organization and cancer management priorities during the global COVID-19 pandemic: applicability in low- and middle-income countries.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a new virus that has never been identified in humans before. COVID-19 caused at the time of writing of this article, 2.5 million cases of infections in 193 countries with 165,000 deaths, including two-third in Europe. In this context, Oncology Departments of the affected countries had to adapt quickly their health system care and establish new organizations and priorities. Thus, numerous recommendations and therapeutic options have been reported to optimize therapy delivery to patients with chronic disease and cancer. Obviously, while these cancer care recommendations are immediately applicable in Europe, they may not be applicable in certain emerging and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In this review, we aimed to summarize these international guidelines in accordance with cancer types, making a synthesis for daily practice to protect patients, staff and tailor anti-cancer therapy delivery taking into account patients/tumour criteria and tools availability. Thus, we will discuss their applicability in the LMICs with different organizations, limited means and different constraints

MUM ENHANCERS are important for seed coat mucilage production and mucilage secretory cell differentiation in Arabidopsis thaliana

Pollination triggers not only embryo development but also the differentiation of the ovule integuments to form a specialized seed coat. The mucilage secretory cells of the Arabidopsis thaliana seed coat undergo a complex differentiation process in which cell growth is followed by the synthesis and secretion of pectinaceous mucilage. A number of genes have been identified affecting mucilage secretory cell differentiation, including MUCILAGE-MODIFIED4 (MUM4). mum4 mutants produce a reduced amount of mucilage and cloning of MUM4 revealed that it encodes a UDP-L-rhamnose synthase that is developmentally up-regulated to provide rhamnose for mucilage pectin synthesis. To identify additional genes acting in mucilage synthesis and secretion, a screen for enhancers of the mum4 phenotype was performed. Eight mum enhancers (men) have been identified, two of which result from defects in known mucilage secretory cell genes (MUM2 and MYB61). Our results show that, in a mum4 background, mutations in MEN1, MEN4, and MEN5 lead to further reductions in mucilage compared to mum4 single mutants, suggesting that they are involved in mucilage synthesis or secretion. Conversely, mutations in MEN2 and MEN6 appear to affect mucilage release rather than quantity. With the exception of men4, whose single mutant exhibits reduced mucilage, none of these genes have a single mutant phenotype, suggesting that they would not have been identified outside the compromised mum4 background

Linkage Mapping of Stem Saccharification Digestibility in Rice

Rice is the staple food of almost half of the world population, and in excess 90% of it is grown and consumed in Asia, but the disposal of rice straw poses a problem for farmers, who often burn it in the fields, causing health and environmental problems. However, with increased focus on the development of sustainable biofuel production, rice straw has been recognized as a potential feedstock for non-food derived biofuel production. Currently, the commercial realization of rice as a biofuel feedstock is constrained by the high cost of industrial saccharification processes needed to release sugar for fermentation. This study is focused on the alteration of lignin content, and cell wall chemotypes and structures, and their effects on the saccharification potential of rice lignocellulosic biomass. A recombinant inbred lines (RILs) population derived from a cross between the lowland rice variety IR1552 and the upland rice variety Azucena with 271 molecular markers for quantitative trait SNP (QTS) analyses was used. After association analysis of 271 markers for saccharification potential, 1 locus and 4 pairs of epistatic loci were found to contribute to the enzymatic digestibility phenotype, and an inverse relationship between reducing sugar and lignin content in these recombinant inbred lines was identified. As a result of QTS analyses, several cell-wall associated candidate genes are proposed that may be useful for marker-assisted breeding and may aid breeders to produce potential high saccharification rice varieties

Diverse aging rates in ectothermic tetrapods provide insights for the evolution of aging and longevity

Comparative studies of mortality in the wild are necessary to understand the evolution of aging; yet, ectothermic tetrapods are underrepresented in this comparative landscape, despite their suitability for testing evolutionary hypotheses. We present a study of aging rates and longevity across wild tetrapod ectotherms, using data from 107 populations (77 species) of nonavian reptiles and amphibians. We test hypotheses of how thermoregulatory mode, environmental temperature, protective phenotypes, and pace of life history contribute to demographic aging. Controlling for phylogeny and body size, ectotherms display a higher diversity of aging rates compared with endotherms and include phylogenetically widespread evidence of negligible aging. Protective phenotypes and life-history strategies further explain macroevolutionary patterns of aging. Analyzing ectothermic tetrapods in a comparative context enhances our understanding of the evolution of aging.Animal science

Learning designs as a stimulus and support for teachers\u27 design practices

This chapter builds on and brings up to date the work described in Chapter 6. The authors report on a decade of empirical work with teaching practitioners which has led them to conclude that learning designs (by which they mean a specific form of graphical representation and explanatory text) are usable by university teachers. Designs are referred to for guidance and inspiration, in what the authors see as an example of case-based professional learning. Having a classification system seems to support this, even though it is not directly related to subject area. An important finding is that learning designs from the AUTC project can support the integration of pedagogy, technology and content knowledge in practitioners\u27 design thinking

ECG-gated 64-MDCT angiography –Diagnosis of acute aortic dissection

The purpose of this study is to show the value of ECG gated 64-MDCT as a non-invasive and reliable method for the evaluation of acute aortic dissection with significantly reduced motion artefacts of the thoracic aorta and the supraaortic vessels, at the same time allowing non-invasive assessment of the coronary arteries as part of the aortic root evaluation